


just wanna get your attention

by deletable_bird



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Confusion, Fluff, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, Innuendo, M/M, Oops, Prostitution, awkward!Phil, neither of them are youtubers, not really a hooker!Dan, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 21:36:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5065180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deletable_bird/pseuds/deletable_bird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Dan’s brushed his hair away and is properly looking at him for the first time, and his eyes have turned amber-russet in the yellow kitchen light. His lips are parted just slightly, and his fringe is swept to the side, and he looks as if he wants to eat Phil alive. Fucking hell.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	just wanna get your attention

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](http://damhowell.tumblr.com/post/131709971465/can-someone-please-write-me-an-au-where-phil-is) post
> 
> [ _disclaimer_ ](http://deletablebird.tumblr.com/d)

Phil’s always rather hated having to walk through the sketchy bit of town to get back to his flat after a long day of uni and then trying to hold together the dregs of his day job, and today is no different. The streets he has to traverse are lined with houses that look as if they were put through a blender, and the few owners that are visible appear entirely done with life. This is the place where people wait in dark alleys with drugs out in the open, and Phil always rushes past this bit of his walk home as fast as he can without speaking a word to anyone.

He turns a familiar corner and passes a completely destroyed building, boarded up and decorated with a ragged group of hookers leaning against the wall in ripped fishnets and scavenged clothes. His feet slow unconsciously as his eyes fall on a tall, unfamiliarly lanky boy, probably a hooker as well, standing a little apart from the rest of the group, his fringe in need of a trim and falling into his eyes. He’s almost as slender as the desperate-looking women standing about ten feet away from him, his torso hugged by a leather jacket and his lower half clad in the most scandalously revealing pair of distressed black skinny jeans Phil has ever seen. He can see great stripes of the boy’s thighs and the entirety of his left knee, and the way he’s slouching against the wall with his hands shoved into his back pockets is inexplicably alluring.

Phil’s feet have ground slowly to a near stop, and he nearly trips over his own shoes when he realizes he’s staring like he’s never seen a male human being before. The stupidly attractive prostitute, however hot he looks, also looks like he’s about to freeze his are off, and as Phil draws closer he can see the intermittent shivering that grips the boy’s shoulders.

“Hey,” he says without thinking, his words carried on a puff of steamy breath in the chilly air, and the boy looks up so fast Phil flinches at what looks like a case of whiplash. His eyes are wide and he can’t quite tell what colour they are in the gray, cloudy lighting, but his mouth is sinfully perfect and Phil’s stomach is already in knots. Fuck.

“Hey?” the boy asks, looking a bit confused, his brows pinching together under the feathery shield of his fringe, and Phil’s words fly out of his mouth without the least bit of permission.

“You look cold. Want to come home with me?”

“I―okay,” the boy says, sounding as if he’s never received a word of kindness in his life, and Phil’s heart skips a beat. He pushes himself off the wall he’s leaning on and takes two tentative steps forward, and Phil tries to smile reassuringly. It doesn’t really happen, and he quickly aborts the mission, instead just adopting a shaky mask of false calm. On the inside, he’s a fucking hurricane of every kind of feeling, and not showing any of them is proving to be nearly impossible.

“My flat’s just a couple minutes that way,” he says, pointing vaguely in what he thinks is the right direction, and sets off towards home. The boy follows a couple paces behind him, and Phil tries desperately to think of something to say. Is Phil pressuring him into something? Does the boy just think Phil’s trying to fuck him? Jesus, this was a bad idea, but he can’t really go back now.

He’s reached the door of the building he lives in by the time he finally turns and says, “How long were you waiting out there?”

“Too long,” the boy says, a shiver running through his body as he steps into the relative warmth of the cramped, claustrophobic hall that serves only to lead the unlucky newcomer to the least welcoming flight of stairs in the whole of the great British Empire. “I was about to literally turn into an icicle, but I don’t really have anywhere else to go at this time of day. Not where I am in life.”

“That stinks,” says Phil, wondering if all sex workers are so disappointed in their life choices as this one seems to be. He leads the boy up the stairs, looking over his shoulder after the third flight with his face as red as all get out.

“Sorry there’s no elevator, you must be tired.” Christ, he’s hopeless. What must this boy think of him?

“No, it’s fine,” he says. “I’m Dan, by the way.”

What a commonplace name for a stupidly unique person.

“Name’s Phil. Nice to meet you, Dan.” Phil tries to smile again. He fails again. He should just stop.

Dan doesn’t say anything else until they finally reach Phil’s floor and Phil makes a complete idiot of himself as he fails to unlock his door about five times in a row. After the failed sixth attempt, Dan huffs out a tiny laugh and steps up close to Phil, near enough that Phil can hear him breathing. He’s just the tiniest bit taller than Phil himself, which is saying something. “Here.” His fingers brush over Phil’s knuckles, and he takes the key from Phil’s grip, unlocking the door in one smooth motion.

“How did you―?” Phil blurts out, trying to sound offended even as he’s apparently losing the ability to breathe due to proximity to this ridiculously attractive hooker. Dan smirks a mysterious smirk, and fuck, he’s got a dimple.

“I’m good at unlocking things,” he practically purrs, or maybe it’s just Phil’s uni-and-nearness-addled brain. “Finding out what people really mean.”

Fuck.

“That’s―that’s nice,” Phil chokes out, darting into his flat at the speed of light, his face burning and his stomach full of butterflies doing the salsa. He slows down once he’s bolted through two doorways and calls Dan into the kitchen, ridiculously glad that his voice doesn’t crack halfway through his words.

“Tea?” he asks once Dan appears, tentative and peering around through his curtain of his hair. He nods, and sits down before Phil can invite him to. Phil doesn’t make anything of it (later, he’ll agonize about every second of the visit like his life depends on it) and after a few minutes of awkward clinking around, he sets a mug of steaming Earl Grey down in front of Dan before wrapping his fingers around his own drink.

“So, um,” he says, “how’s life been?”

“Rough, to be completely honest,” Dan tells him, not meeting his eyes. “I’m kind of starting to lose hope that I’ll ever amount to something that I’m not right now.”

“I know that feeling,” Phil replies, and he really does, though not as dramatically as this poor boy-almost-man seems to. Dan brings the tea to his lips to take a drink, despite the fact that it’s still steaming hot, and Phil’s eyes lock onto his mouth, again. That mouth is deplorably alluring.

“I’d say good, but it’s not very good, is it, so there you are.” Dan’s lips quirk upward into something like a smile, and Phil’s heart does a somersault. “So where are you working, then? You still in uni?” Dan asks once his mug’s firmly settled on the table between his palms once again, and Phil shakes himself back into the present.

“Oh, I’ve got a job at an antiques shop downtown,” he says off-handedly. “Mostly just rearranging furniture and dusting stuff, but yeah, I’m still in uni. Last year, though, thank God.”

“Lucky ass,” Dan remarks, a smirk tilting the corners of his lips again. Fuck. “I’m only a first year student, and already holding up any kind of job is nearly too much, even the one I’ve got right now.”

“You not well off, then?” Phil mentally smacks himself in the forehead. Tactless. Dan only huffs out a breath of amusement at the remark, though, and grins. His dimples pop out, and Phil forgets how to breathe himself.

“I’m struggling.” He takes another drink, and sighs. The steam from his mug wavers in his breath. “With my job, some cases can be really hard, and demanding, and at the end of the day all I want is some soothing hot tea.”

Jesus, what kind of people has this boy been fucking? Phil covers his flush with a drink from his own mug, and chokes on the tea. When he emerges, Dan is grinning again.

“Either something’s really really funny, or you’re not quite sure about how to swallow the right way,” he remarks, and Phil nearly chokes again. This boy is a one-way ticket to innuendo-town, and to be completely honest Phil doesn’t really want a trip back.

He attempts a valiant comeback with a stammered “no, I’m just cripplingly clumsy,” and fails because Dan’s brushed his hair away and is properly looking at him for the first time, and his eyes have turned amber-russet in the yellow kitchen light. His lips are parted just slightly, and his fringe is swept to the side, and he looks as if he wants to eat Phil alive.

Fucking hell.

“Cripplingly clumsy, huh?” Dan’s voice slices through the fog filling Phil’s head. “That’s unfortunate, with a job like yours especially.”

 _A job like yours_ is the only thing running through Phil’s head, and he fakes a smile. “I’ve learned my lesson with limb placement, but as soon as I get home I’m an elephant in a china shop again. It’s too much work to be graceful all day.”

Dan laughs then, a kind of quiet, suppressed giggle, and Phil can tell he’s holding back and automatically wonders what his laugh really sounds like. Their gazes meet. There’s a long, drawn-out moment of silence, in which Phil can’t break the eye contact, and then he blurts out, “So where are you living?”

“Dorms,” Dan says, his voice descending into the realms of hopelessly monotone. “It’s fucking horrible, I hate it. Sometimes I wish I could just run away with the people I meet on the streets and live with them, even if they’re completely horrible.”

“I’m not completely horrible, am I?” Phil says, trying to pass it off as a joke with a light tone, but he sounds far too anxious to convince anyone, much less Dan with his shrewd eyes and his too-long fringe and his fucking _mouth_ , Jesus Christ.

“No,” Dan says, tilting his head to the side so his hair falls from its place on his brow, framing his left temple and nearly brushing his shoulder with the way he’s hunched over his cup of tea, his posture nearly as terrible as Phil’s. Dan’s eyes skim over Phil’s shoulders, torso, and a rush of gymnophoria bolts through the pit of Phil’s stomach.

“No,” he continues, drawing out the word like a long, languid kiss, “you’re actually not terrible at all. A pleasant surprise in the midst of a world full of really nasty surprises.”

“Listen,” Phil blurts out, unable to stop himself, “if you ever need―you know, need a place to―to stay, or something, I can―I mean, you can stay with me if you ever want to get away from―from work, and stuff.”

Dan’s eyebrows knit, and he gives Phil an attempt at a confused smile. “Why would I need somewhere to stay to get away from work? It’s not that bad, I just exaggerate, you know.”

Phil hisses through his teeth. Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t―

“I just mean, you know, if you want to get away from your―your pimp, or whatever―”

Dan pushes his chair back so violently its legs screech against the kitchen floor. “I’m sorry?” He looks furious. Phil shoots to his feet, helpless.

“I just―I just assumed you didn’t really like being a hooker, and I kind of like you, and I mean―”

“You thought I was a fucking _hooker_?” Dan half-shouts, his face flushed and his fingers white-knuckled on the back of his chair. He looks intimidating and fuckable as hell.

“Look at yourself!” Phil shouts back, confusion and shock making his voice loud enough to echo around the kitchen. “Look at where I found you! What else was I going to think? I was only trying to be nice, you know!”

“I’m not a fucking _prostitute_!” Dan yells back. “I’m in fucking law, for God’s sake! I work at a goddamn Chick-fil-A!”

All of a sudden, Phil’s insides are made of lead, and he feels as if he’s about to throw up. “You―you’re not even―oh my fucking God.”

Dan stands there, his eyes still fixed on Phil, as Phil himself buries his face in his hands and tries not to catch on fire from utter mortification. When he finally looks back up, Dan is grinning slightly.

“You . . . thought I was a hooker,” he says, and breaks into laughter.

He’s actually laughing this time, a loud, genuine cackle that would be obnoxious but is just weirdly, stupidly endearing. Phil starts giggling, he can’t help it, and then laughing properly, and when they finally calm down they’re both wiping tears from their eyes and hiccuping helplessly.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” Phil finally manages, uncovering his mouth with his hands long enough to speak. Dan shakes his head, his breath still hitching with laughter, and breaks into a fresh bout of giggles.

“Oh my God,” he says. “Oh my God. You’re so pathetic it’s funny.”

Phil tries to look offended but the way Dan’s shoulders shake when he laughs is far too distracting. Their eyes meet, tangibly, for the second time, and Phil manages a smile. “I guess you should probably be going?”

“No, actually,” Dan says, his tone mock-musing, “I’ve got a free afternoon, I think. And I, um,” his tone deteriorates into so nervous Phil can taste it, “I haven’t’ laughed that hard in a long time.”

Phil’s heart skips a beat at the vulnerability underlying Dan’s words. He rocks forward onto his toes, back onto his heels. “Neither have I, to be completely honest.”

“Good. Now I can invade your personal space without so much as an inkling of a second thought about my behavior.” Dan’s grinning again.

“What, you’re just going to decide to stay in my house without so much as a ‘please’?” Phil has to work hard to suppress a smile. Dan just raises an eyebrow and flicks his fringe aside with a quick tilt of his head. His voice is so sarcastic when he replies it’s dripping off the words.

“You call this a _house_?” The sarcasm all but vanishes in a heartbeat. “And you don’t really mind, do you?”

“No.” Phil’s grinning wider than he’s grinned in months. “No, you can stay. That’d be great.”

“And maybe . . . I mean, I don’t know, but maybe, if you wanted to, we could, I don’t know, um, meet up again.” Dan’s staring at his shoes by the time his sentence trickles off into nothingness, and Phil can’t help but start laughing again.

“That would be even greater,” he manages to get out, and Dan looks up with an expression of relief that quickly melts into devilish amusement.

“I mean, someone who thinks I look attractive enough to be selling myself for sex must think I’m attractive enough to go out with,” Dan smirks, his eyes glowing with laughter.

Phil swallows, grins from ear to ear. “You’re not wrong there.”

**Author's Note:**

> oops


End file.
